In late 1989, Atari released the STE, a version of the ST with improvements to the multimedia hardware and operating system. The STE featured an increased color palette of 4096 colors from the ST's 512 and 2 channel stereo sound. The Atari STE (of the ST family) was part of the 16/32 bit generation of home computers, based on the Motorola 68000 CPU.STE had a graphics co-processor chip called Blitter which could quickly move large blocks of data (most particularly, graphics sprites) around in RAM. It also included a new 2-channels digital sound chip that could play 8-bit stereo samples in hardware at up to 50 kHz. Two enhanced joystick ports (EJP) were added (two normal joysticks could be plugged into each port with an adaptor), with the new connectors placed in more easily-accessed locations on the side of the case. The enhanced joystick ports were re-used in Atari's Jaguar console, and are compatible. RAM was now much more simply upgradable via SIMMs. Note the ST models featured good graphics and sound in games, sometimes comparable with the similar opponent called Commodore Amiga! Despite all of this, it still ran at 8 MHz, and the enhanced hardware was clearly designed to catch up with the Amiga....but it never did...

The Atari STE (default) color palette

12bit RGB 4096-colors palette (16 on-screen and up to 4096 in static image)

The MEGA STE is based on STE hardware. Physically, the 2 MB and 4 MB models shipped with a high resolution mono monitor, and an internal ACSI hard disk (the 1 MB model included neither a monitor, hard disk, nor hard disk controller). Despite offering better ST compatibility than the TT, it also included a number of TT features, from the ST-grey version of the TT case with separate keyboard and system unit, optional FPU, a VMEbus slot, two extra RS232 ports (all 9-pin rather than 25-pin as previous models had), a LocalTalk/RS-422 port (no AppleTalk software was ever produced) and a 1.44 MB HD floppy support. Support for a third/middle mouse button was included, too. A unique feature of the MEGA STE was the software-switchable CPU speed, which could run at 16 MHz, or 8 MHz for better compatibility with old software. An upgrade to the OS was also included, initially shipping with TOS 2.0 and later 2.6/2.06.Ok MEGA STE was A late-model Motorola 68000-based STE mounted in the case of the otherwise unrelated Atari TT computer, although a number of TT features were also blended in. The resulting machine was a more business-like version of the ST line, much like the previous Mega ST model.. A unique feature of the MEGA STE in relation to previous Atari systems is the software-switchable CPU speed, which allows the CPU to operate at 16 MHz for faster processing or 8 MHz for better compatibility with old software.

The Atari Mega STE (default) color palette

12bit RGB 4096-colours palette (16 on-screen and up to 4096 in static image)